


and hollow.

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Homophobic Language, Just once but still heads up, M/M, Platonic if you want them to be, Shippy Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 07:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9481127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: "John’s soul mark stays so stationary for so long he starts to wonder if there’s something wrong with his mate."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [...и пусты](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12616312) by [Anne_Boleyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Boleyn/pseuds/Anne_Boleyn)



John’s soul mark stays so stationary for so long he starts to wonder if there’s something wrong with his mate.

All through his adolescence, right up through when he enlists, the tiny little egg at the base of his spine does not move. Occasionally, he thinks he sees shadows cast on it, the lighting pass around it, eventually he notices a few faint cracks, but other than that, nothing changes. It never hatches and he spends all of his youth with it looking more like a regular old tattoo instead of a Mark. He is accused of being a soulless _Blank_ trying to pass more times than he cares to remember. He learns to keep his shirts tucked in young.

First out of a childish attempt to keep the egg warm, and then later out of shame.

In the barracks, when his shirt crept up his back while he slept, Doug McDouchenozzle saw it and snorted, “Maybe _he_ ain’t out of the closet yet.”

John watched him and his cronies laugh with narrowed eyes; he had thought of that himself and didn’t find the idea nearly as repugnant as their laughter implied they did. If it was a scared guy, hiding to protect himself, that would be fine, that would make sense. John was the soldier, his partner wouldn’t have to be. He’d find a way to fight their fears.

“Nah, wait,” Doug continued because guys like him never know when to quit, “Maybe he ain’t even _born yet_.”

Already feeling too old at twenty-three, John went cold all over with dread and rage at the very thought, freezing where he’d started to push himself up off the bed. He was a lot of things, he was a lot of _bad_ things deep down, but he would _never_ be a—

“Cradle robbing faggot,” someone else muttered, but not lowly enough for John to miss, and that was enough to land them all running drills in the rain at 3am, bloodied, loose teeth and black eyes to boot.

John was the fighter. His partner would never have to be afraid.

As a twenty-something, shame got shoved away; keeping his shirt tucked in was an act of protectiveness, a promise of safety.

*

Promises don’t mean much, though.

John thinks it’s a little poetic that he feels his Mark move for the first time the night everything starts spiraling. He’s got the gun on Kara’s back when it happens, the faint inkling of motion against his spine, almost like a memory more than an actual feeling. He pauses at the unfamiliar sensation of a spirit motion, then staggers at the familiar sensation of bullets against Kevlar.

He doesn’t get to look at it properly for weeks, but when he does, he feels his chest sinking.

It’s exploded.

The biggest chunk is toppled over on its side, but mostly it’s just bits of shell everywhere, hiding nothing. The only answer he has to any of his lifelong questions is the brown downy feather laid among the wreckage, just beneath the dimple on his back.

It was a bird.

There are professionals, libbys with PhDs who send years learning to interpret soul marks for people, there’s a whole business of it. John has never considered or trusted this practice, has never had to think about the message of a broken egg. Now that he is, it is only years of training that keep him from spiraling into panic. He knows better than to think this is for Kara, for her death on the roof. The whole thing appears too frantic, _frightened_ to be Kara and John—John wants to find them, _needs_ to. Something has hurt them and he needs to get to them, to put himself between them and what shattered them.

The only thing he has ever wanted that badly is Jessica (to be the little egg, nesting on Jessica’s balcony).

And so he calls and searches and threatens and runs, and runs, and doesn’t stop until he’s sitting on Arndt’s couch, numb and lost in the midst of the coldest rage he has ever felt.

It should’ve occurred to him before, but with his knuckles dripping with the blood of the man his lover loved, he realizes _he_ is the thing that would hurt her, would break the shell. In his absence, there was nothing to protect it, his tucked in shirt didn’t mean _shit_ , to anything but his own stupid sentimentality _._ The guilt that weighs down on him hunches his shoulders, bows his head.

John can’t stand to break or be broken anymore, he’s tired, he’s so damn tired it feels like he doesn’t even exist.

 He doesn’t look at his back any more.

*

The bird is back in the ruins of its shell by the time John meets Harold Finch, though he doesn’t realize it at first.

There are too many other – _negative_ – emotions clouding their first meetings for John to care one way or another what the wreckage on his back does. Even upon cleaning himself up and warming up to Finch, he doesn’t think to look at his back until he tracks down the first of Finch’s aliases he is able to name. When he shows up at that fake desk job, feeling loose and happy in the knowledge that Finch _owns_ the whole damn thing, he feels it – his mark moves, this time less frantically, but still something like an alarmed shift.

When he gets out of the shower that night, he pauses his usual rush past the mirror. He doesn’t have to look, he doesn’t have a single thing to gain by looking—

He turns his back to the glass before he can think any more about it.

The egg is mostly back together, though it looks like that’s largely due to external forces. Lines of something – tape or glue, it’s hard to tell on skin – are holding it together, save for the one part cracked off the front. There are eyes staring out of the darkness, almost pensively. It’s a look he recognizes, but he refuses to think about that any further. He tries to trick himself into forgetting he’d noticed it, continuing to put his suits on without looking; the bird is looking enough for him.

But it’s not that easy, the more he knows, the shakier his secret feels – an eggshell held together with flimsy tape and mod podge. The closer he gets to Harold Finch – _Wren, Crane, Martin, Whistler_ – the harder it is to pretend the pattern doesn’t weigh on him, doesn’t feel like something more than just a smirk and tease at catching onto Harold’s hobby.

At first, he thinks he’s imagining it, the way his spirit mark moves when he’s in danger, a discontented flutter or nervous puffing, that only fades when he returns to the library. _It’s wishful thinking_ , he tells himself, ashamed of his own desires, even as they occasionally save his life. He _knows_ it’s wishful thinking, because even if he _does_ belong to—

He shakes himself at his own thoughts. Even if Harold is _his_ soulmate, there is nobody in the world Harold will love the way he loves Grace – she and Harold are a fixed picture, indisputable. John may as well be a Blank; he can never have anything from Harold, not with him frozen in time with the love of his life.

 When he’s standing on the roof, a bomb strapped to his chest, he can _feel_ the bird, the frantic changing of it that could be the beating of wings or the beating of a heart. He shuts his eyes and, for the first time, lets himself believe, now if never again. When Harold picks a winner and breathes out in relief, John takes a breath, the pulse in his back slowing down. He takes a breath and lets it actually mean something.

When he looks down at Harold Finch he’s looking down at the little birdy that’s always watching his back.

That night, he looks in the mirror to find the bird looking back, but this time the whole top of the shell has been lifted off to reveal a little tuft of feathers, twisted up like a tiny cowlick.

*

The thing is, John means to let himself be content with the knowledge that he’s found his soulmate. That’s more than a lot of people can say, that’s more than John thought he could have for a long time. And even if he doesn’t _have_ Finch – not in every way he wants – Finch has him and they are a duo. Affixed with several other people to make their operation run, yes, but Harold sees him as indispensable. Which is, frankly, alarming to John’s previous solitary nature, but still, deeply moving.

He has a _purpose_ and can still find the time to sit with a dog at his feet and pretend to read while he watches the love of his life drink the tea he’d brought him. It is _everything_ , even on days it isn’t, and John can live with this.

Right up until John doesn’t think he is going to live anymore.

John knows what close calls feel like, he’s sure as hell lived enough of them. This feels closer than that. So he does what he is trained to do from the start; he keeps shooting and keeps moving. Then he does what he learned later; he tells Finch not to come because it isn’t safe, he tells Finch thank you for giving him a life he could be proud of. He says thank you for “ _Always, Mr. Reese_ ” and how much those words and this name have come to mean to him.

“Don’t come here,” he says as he slides to the ground, but then in the next breath, “Are you there, Finch?”

“ _Always, Mr. Reese,_ ” Finch says and his voice is tight and sounds crackling. His earpiece must have broken when that guy kicked him in the head, but he still hears it. He hears it and smiles.

Abruptly, the only thing in the world he is afraid of is Harold never knowing what he meant to John.

“Finch,” John gasps.

“ _I’m not going anywhere,_ ” Harold says in a rush, breathless. “ _I’m not leaving you there._ ”

“No,” John laughs, then says, “My mark... It’s a bird.” The line fizzes and John laughs some more, “I think it’s a finch.”

The head trauma – or the blood loss hard to tell at this point – makes his world grey around the edges. He thinks he hears Harold say his name again – fitting as the last thing he hears – before darkness takes him like a bag over the head.

*

John wakes up.

It’s unexpected, but – even with a headache and the swirling dip and fall of a brain on _a lot_ of drugs – acceptable.

It takes him a long moment to register the feeling of someone watching him and even longer to manage to pry his eyes open. While his vision is still slightly gritty, he thinks he would recognize the person at his bedside even if the world was upside down and in inverted colors.

“Harold,” he rasps, sounding choked even as he tries to aims for teasing, “I hope you didn’t spend all night in that chair…”

Harold looks at him with something like disbelief – something stutters on John’s back – before he’s scrambling painfully to his feet. John wants to tell him to stop, but his voice wheezes so he waits until Harold returns with the doctor, watches him stand fretfully at the end of the bed as she looks him over. He hears her, understands that he’s being called a miracle, but he doesn’t pay attention beyond that, watching Harold shifting, practically _feeling_ it happen against his skin.

The doctor does not appear to be offended by their half-hearted, distracted parting as she finally leaves.

Harold is tired, John can see that. When he moves back around to the side of the bed, John starts to tell him to go home, or at least go lay down. He probably _owns_ this facility, surely there’s a space set up for him. However, his train of thought derails when Harold sits on the edge of the bed, just a careful inch from his leg, just a careful inch from the tips of his fingers. John could reach him if he was willing to wrench his injured shoulder, considers it for a delirious moment, but then Harold is speaking.

“For many years, I mistakenly assumed it was just…” he pauses, eyes far away before continuing quietly, “representative of loss.”

Though he’s feeling more awake, John is still exceedingly groggy, so it takes him an embarrassingly long time to follow what Harold could possibly be talking about. When he figures it out, Harold graciously giving him those few moments to do so, he sobers and perks up all at once. “Your mark?”

Harold nods absently. “When I lost Grace, I thought _surely_ …” he stops, wringing his hands together. “I have a _hole_ , Mr. Reese— _John_ ,” he corrects himself, “I thought it was because nothing would ever come of my soulmate, at least not of our relationship. Nothing can live with a hole through the center, right?”

“I beg to differ,” John says lazily.

Harold’s eyes focus on him again, on his bandages. “Yes, quite,” he mutters, “But it… it’s not hollow now, not anymore, not since you…” He stops, seeming uncertain about what he’s even trying to say. Then he stands carefully, moving to undo his vest.

John can’t tell if his blood runs cold or hot, only aware of the stutter in his chest. “You don’t have to show me,” he says quickly, “I haven’t shown you mine—”

“I believe you, John,” Harold says quietly, and John doesn’t think any other words have ever stolen his voice so swiftly. Harold has layers on layers, but John doesn’t speak the whole time until Harold’s got his bare back turned towards John.

“It was never a hole of decay… It was, all along…”

There, just off-center on Harold’s back, just out of the reach of his scars, a dark, misshapen little circle. John would almost guess it was meant to represent an exit wound, if not for the fact that it was overflowing with strings and straws and the fact that he wants to crawl inside it.

“It was a _burrow_ ,” Harold chokes out. “A _nest_ , John, I’m…” His voice falters and John doesn’t understand why until – with a twinge of pain – he realizes he _has_ wrenched his shoulder to put his fingers against Harold’s skin.

The bird on his back ruffles with pleasure.

“You’re my home,” John says softly, the words feeling saccharine and completely true as they slide out of his mouth. Finch turns quickly to look at him and he lets his hand fall.

Harold gapes at him for a moment, the awe and fear fighting for dominance on his face. “I have never been that for anyone, John,” he whispers, “I haven’t a _clue_ what to do.”

John blinks slowly. “I haven’t ever gotten that from anyone, so I haven’t got a clue what to expect,” he says, then lets his head loll over as he thinks. Or rather, _doesn’t_ think – just babbles. “I like the suits, you know? It feels nice when you dress me. The apartment is ok, though I like the couch by your desk better. I love my job, the purpose you gave me. The work is hard, but it’s good. So is the eggs benedict,” he sighs silently then holds Harold’s gaze and admits, “The company is irreplaceable, though.”

“That is…” Harold’s face twists, but John knows it’s not pain, he knows because he feels that twist in his heart, right now – the fighting off of doubt. When he reaches out, Harold looks at his hand in awe before he catches it, staring down at John’s hand in his. “Is that enough?”

“It’s more than I have ever had,” John says, brushing his thumb across Harold’s fingers, then, “It’s everything. _You’re_ everything, if I’m enough—”

“`Oh, John!” Harold says, squeezing his hand like he can’t quite help it. “ _John_ , goodness, you are _more_ than enough. You’re a rarity beyond compare,” he says and it’s so very _Finch_ that John feels like the bird has fluttered its way up to his chest.

John smirks, “Collector’s edition, huh?”

Harold’s gaze is as longsuffering as it is smitten. “Of course,” he leans over and brings John’s hand to his mouth, “and I intend to _keep_ you as long as you’re willing to be kept.”

John’s smile widens at that, because that’s wonderful, that’s _perfect_.

That’s as close to forever as John can imagine.

[“We are empty inside and hollow. Hoping something small and sweet will make its nest in us.”](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1193)

**Author's Note:**

> I, uh. I may have taken some liberties with how their timelines lined up, but I hope it worked out pleasurably!


End file.
